30 Months Old: MORE SNOW & Peeing in the Potty! Yay!

by RenaeMcAlister on February 17, 2010

Dear Max,

What day is it? I am seriously that lost right now. It has been a busy and somewhat rough couple of weeks and I completely forgot what day it was. Thankfully, your father reminded me that I am a few days late on writing your monthly letter. He told me you had been asking when your website would be updated. I am glad I am a few days late because now I can talk about the huge SNOW STORM! Last month I was telling you about it snowing and now I can tell you that there was a record amount of snowfall this month. North Texas got between 6 to 12 inches of snow, completely unheard of. On Tuesday and Wednesday you and Jake had a fever, and the snow hit on Thursday. I didn’t take you outside on Thursday because I didn’t want to irritate whatever virus you had. However, on Friday you seemed back to your normal self. While Jake was taking his morning nap I took you into the front yard to build a snowman! Of course I did the actual building, but you insisted that we put a mustache on it. We decided to use your Mr. Potato Head pieces for our snowman’s face, and one of your hats. I think it turned out great. You were pretty cute, too.

Speaking of the last few weeks being rough, you and Jake have been sick off and on for almost a month now. About a month ago you and Jake got RSV. Basically you were coughing a lot and sounded like you were smoking 6 packs a day. I got concerned because it sounded like you were wheezing, so I took you both to the doctor. You both tested positive for RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) and you also had your first ever ear infection. They tell you that when your child has an ear infection they will pull on their ears or complain of ear pain or something. Well, guess what? You did none of those things. We had no idea you had an ear infection. After we found out you had one we remembered that you would kind of cry when we told you to blow your nose, but that was it. With RSV we had to get a nebulizer and give you and Jake breathing treatments, along with antibiotics that you were taking for your ear infection. It took a couple of weeks for this virus to run its course. Right now Jake is sick again, but I think you are finally better. However, you still have a snotty nose. It has been a rough winter.

Did I mention we started potty training last week? I have wanted to start potty training with you for a month now, but every week there was some new hurdle to jump over. You and Jake have been sick for like 3 week now, and then we had a meeting with Don King. (Unrelated tangent coming up.) By the way, you really took to Don. We had him over for dinner and I think he took a liking to you. I got a great picture of the two of you together, much better than the last one I took where you were crying. Anyway, back to potty training. It has gone great! I had already planned to just take you to the bathroom every 30 minutes to make sure you didn’t have any accidents. To my surprise, you actually told me when you needed to go. I wasn’t sure if I could trust you, but when you told me you needed to go, you went. Right now you are calling a pull-up “underwear” and you know that when you are wearing one you aren’t supposed to go the bathroom in it. I am still putting a diaper on you for nap time and bedtime. I’m glad that you don’t think a pull up is a diaper. For the past 2 days you haven’t had any accidents and have kept your pull up dry all day. You still go in your diaper during nap and bedtime, but for now I’m not that concerned. My plan is to start putting you in real underwear and maybe just putting a pull up on over your underwear when we go somewhere. I’m not sure if I should be taking your potty seat converter thing with me when we go somewhere or I should just put you on the big toilet seat. Oh, the difficult decision we are faced with in life.

(Don and Max at 15 months old)

(Don and Max at 30 months old)

I think you are under the impression that you are teenage girl. Seriously, where did this attitude and lip come from? The last few days have been trying. You just came out of no where with talking back, and bossing around. We have talked about how to talk nicely and the difference between you saying, “Get my cup” and “Can I have my cup, please.” Boy, you are NOT going to talk to me that way. I don’t talk to YOU that way, so I don’t know where you are getting it. Either way, I saw a big improvement today. Thankfully.

You call everyone a “silly booger” all the time. This is completely my fault. I am always calling Jake a “silly booger” or a “silly goose”. I am not offended at all at this name calling, and I actually think it’s kind of cute. I mean, really, it could be MUCH worse.

So you are full on praying for every meal alone. At first you always said, “Thank you for muffins.” You have a thing for muffins, I guess. So I pointed out to you that you were not eating muffins and you needed to pray for what you were eating. So before we pray for lunch or dinner I always point out what we are eating. At first your prayers went something like this, “Father, thank you for chicken and corn. In Jesus name, Amen.” Short. Sweet. To the point. Now you are changing it up a little bit and it goes like this, “Father, thank you for chicken, NOT HAMBURGER. In Jesus name, Amen.” I guess you want to make sure God doesn’t get confused between the two.

You are really into the “Arthur” books and TV show. I don’t know how you it really came about, but every time we go the library you want to check out an Arthur book. The other day I took you to Half-Priced Books and we found a lot of Arthur books. I told you I would buy you 2, but you coerced me into buying 3. You kept saying, “Not 2, 5!” I compromised by letting you have 3. I have been DVRing episodes of Arthur and I let you watch them as a reward for something. You also like Barney, the big purple dinosaur. (sigh) I use him as an incentive also. I’ve noticed Jake seems interested when the theme song to Barney plays. I’m not going to lie, I don’t mind letting you watch “your shows” every once in a while because I can usually get so much done. (laundry, cleaning, etc.)

Thanks for pooping in the potty. Changing your diapers was making me gag. I’m so not exaggerating.

Love,
Mama

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POTTY TRAINING!

by RenaeMcAlister on February 8, 2010

Today I started full on potty training. Max has showed “signs” that he is ready for a while now. I have basically been the hold up. It seems like there was something going on every week so we just kept putting it off. The boys were sick, then we had a church meeting, so this week I decided it was time. This morning I started by putting Max in “big boy” underwear. He was really excited and when I sat him on the potty he peed. (Sidenote: We have been sitting Max on the potty every night before his bath to pee. He is always really excited about it and every night he pees without problem. I guess we just decided to do this to get Max use to going to the bathroom. He always gets one M&M everytime he pees in the potty and 2 M&Ms when he poops.) Since I teach on Mondays I had to have Nona (my mom) take over with the potty training. The initial plan was that we would sit Max on the potty every 30 minutes and basically make him sit there until he did something. (if we had to use some warm water we would) Mom told me that Max had an accident and told her he had to pee but it was too late. After that accident mom put Max in a pull up instead of underwear, which I told her to use if she needed to. After the first accident Max started telling my mom that he needed to pee. Every time he told her that he needed to go, he went, and got an M&M. She said that he had probably had 8 or 9 M&Ms, and that was when I came home at 1pm. After that initial accident this morning Max kept his pull up dry all day! When he saw me get a diaper out for Jake he told me that he doesn’t need a diaper anymore because he is a big boy. He is calling his pull up “big boy underwear”. I didn’t really plan on using pull ups, but if he keeps doing good then I will put him in underwear again. Day 1, SUCCESS!

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“Dancing” (AKA: Running in a Circle)

January 17, 2010

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29 Months Old: SNOW!

January 10, 2010

Dear Max,
We had a very exciting month! The biggest surprise was that is SNOWED! IN TEXAS! I remember the Thanksgiving after you were born that it kind of “snowed/iced”, but you were just a baby and obviously don’t remember. That being said, this was really your first experience with snow. I was so excited to [...]

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I Laughed So Hard I Cried

January 1, 2010

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SNOW!!!

December 25, 2009

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28 Months Old: Boogers and Burritos

December 12, 2009

Dear Max,
Not that you care, but this month’s letter is a few days late. This week has been busy. I completed my first course in my masters program! It went really well and I feel like I learned a lot. Because of the holidays, I now have a month off before the next class and [...]

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27 Months Old: Blackeyes and Pumpkins

November 11, 2009

Dear Max,
We have had a very busy month and things are finally starting to slow down a little bit. Now that the seasons are changing and the fall is upon is there are pumpkins everywhere. There is a really neat pumpkin patch really close to our house and I thought it would be fun to [...]

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